When I first started writing, it was fantasy that inspired me, but somewhere along the way, I realised that fantasy works best when it best reflects real life, and that real life can be fantastical enough for me.

I moved to my present home, deep in the wooded countryside of north Pembrokeshire, and during one of my tramps among the surrounding fields, I came upon a cottage, lost in a deep dell, completely engulfed in trees. It was small, dark, derelict and it must have been abandoned at least fifty years before, but the ghost of occupation was still there, fossilised in stone. The upper floor had collapsed, but under the beams and rotting boards, I could just glimpse flagstones, a broken chair leg, the rusting grill of a hearth from which a family had once been fed.

This is what truly fascinates me: the hand of the past on…